- Discord says it will implement age verification checks globally starting in March
- The decision has sparked outrage from many disappointed Discord users.
- A third-party provider used by Discord was hacked in October 2025
Discord has announced it will implement age verification checks globally starting in March, and the decision has sparked a wave of online anger not seen since Disney+ suspended Jimmy Kimmel.
The messaging app casually announced that the “default teen settings” will roll out “globally to all Discord users” in early March. That means both new and existing users will need to complete a facial age estimation check (via a selfie video) or submit an ID to Discord partners in order to use many parts of the platform.
These include accessing age-restricted channels, servers or commands, and blurring sensitive content or disabling those settings. If you don’t complete Discord’s age verification, you also won’t be able to access a separate message inbox for direct messages from people you may not know, or speak on stage on the servers.
The controversy centers on the security of those age checks, especially considering that Discord recently had to admit in October 2025 that “an unauthorized party compromised one of our third-party providers.”
Discord’s assurances about its age controls haven’t instilled much confidence in many users. If you get an estimate of your age from a selfie video, Discord promises it will never leave your device. However, it also adds that “some users may be asked to use multiple methods if more information is needed to assign an age group,” and if your age group estimate is incorrect, you’ll need to appeal it or verify it with an ID.
On that front, Discord says that “ID documents sent to our vendor partners are deleted quickly, in most cases immediately upon age confirmation.” And the company says it no longer works with the third-party supplier that was affected by that breach last year.
However, none of this has particularly calmed the concerns of many Discord users, who say they are already looking for alternatives…
Discord lives up to its name
There has been growing suspicion that age verification could be coming to Discord, since the service implemented age checks in the UK and Australia last year. Back then, some users found clever ways to bypass the barriers imposed by the UK Online Safety Act, such as using death strandedPhotography mode.
Sadly, that loophole was closed within a week, but it’s likely a taste of what’s to come come March, given the widespread fury that greeted the news. Across countless Reddit threads, the reaction has been near-universal condemnation, with some even predicting the death of the messaging app.
“I categorically cannot trust tech companies with that kind of personal data,” wrote one frustrated user, and many hoped they could convince Discord to do a 180-degree turn with enough public pressure. Others went further. “What a great way to kill your community,” another long-time user added, while some predicted “game over for Discord” and sadly commented that “Internet privacy is really dead.”
The latter gets to the heart of what many consider wrong with these mandatory age verification checks. While governments say it is an essential tool to keep teenagers safe online, many feel it goes overboard and does more harm than good, leading to compromised privacy and increased intrusion.
What irritates many Discord users is that they have used the service for years, some since it launched more than a decade ago in May 2015, and now feel that their reward is being exposed to what appear to be surveillance and privacy issues.
“My account has been around for 8 years. Will I really have to scan my face to prove I’m an adult?” said a popular Reddit answer. Another added: “I’m an adult and I’m tired of being treated like a child on the internet,” concluding that “I will not upload my face or my ID to a database that I know is not secure enough to handle this.”
What are the alternatives?
So what’s next? It’s still unclear how Discord’s age verification checks affected its user numbers in the UK and Australia last year, and the impact may not be as dramatic as the many “RIP Discord” posts predict.
However, it is clear that some users are serious about leaving the popular messaging service. For many, Discord has replaced forums and become the default home for fan communities. Some alternatives mentioned by quitters include TeamSpeak, Stoat (formerly Revolt), and Matrix, but they don’t have anywhere near the scale or popularity of Discord.
Meanwhile, companies like Signal and Slack lack community features or are more work-oriented. Simply put, there isn’t really a direct alternative to Discord at the moment, but some rivals may take advantage of the opportunity in the same way that Bluesky and Threads capitalized on doubts about Twitter when it morphed into Elon Musk’s X.
What is much less likely is a U-turn by Discord on age verification, despite the hopes of many. The decision follows a trend that began last year after the UK’s Online Safety Act, which forced any site hosting potentially “harmful” content to verify that users are over 18. Lawmakers in the US and Europe have now followed suit, meaning today’s Discord furor will likely be the first of many similar incidents in 2026.
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